[1] G. R., ii, pp. 459-463.
[2] “Per resurrectionem Dei! probus erit Robelinus Curta Ocrea.” Ibid., pp. 459-460.
[3] Ibid., p. 460; Ordericus, iii, p. 262: “corpore autem brevis et grossus, ideoque Brevis Ocrea a patre est cognominatus”; ibid., iv, p. 16: “Curta Ocrea iocose cognominatus est.” In another passage (ii, p. 295) Ordericus mentions Gambaron (from jambes or gambes rondes) as another popular nickname: “corpore pingui, brevique statura, unde vulgo Gambaron cognominatus est, et Brevis Ocrea.” In still another place he calls him ‘Robertus Ignavus.’ Interpolations d’Orderic Vital, in William of Jumièges, p. 193.
[4] G. R., ii, p. 460.
[5] It seems to be a sort of an epitome, moved forward somewhat in Robert’s career, of his rebellious course between 1078 and the death of the Conqueror.
[6] Cf. Auguste Le Prévost, in Ordericus, ii, p. 377, n. 1; E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest (2d ed., Oxford, 1870-76), iv, pp. 638-646 et passim. The defence of Robert by Le Hardy is rather zealous than critical, and has not achieved its purpose.
[7] Ordericus, ii, p. 294: “Robertum primogenitam sobolem suam.” In the numerous lists of William and Matilda’s children Robert always appears first: see, e.g., Ordericus, ii, pp. 93, 188; iii, p. 159; Interpolations de Robert de Torigny, in William of Jumièges, p. 251.
[8] E.g., Thomas Stapleton, in The Archaeological Journal, iii (1846), pp. 20-21; Le Prévost, in Ordericus, v, p. 18, n. 1; Freeman, in E. H. R., iii (1888), pp. 680-681, and Norman Conquest, iii, pp. 660-661. Stapleton, Le Prévost, and Freeman all cite the Tours chronicle (H. F., xi, p. 348) as authority for the date. But in point of fact the Tours chronicle gives no such date; and so far as it may be said to give any date at all, it seems to assign the marriage to 1056. Stapleton suggests in favor of 1053 that the imprisonment of Leo IX by the Normans in that year may have emboldened the interested parties to a defiance of the ecclesiastical prohibition.
[9] “Interdixit et Balduino comiti Flandrensi, ne filiam suam Wilielmo Nortmanno nuptui daret; et illi, ne earn acciperet.” Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, ed. G. D. Mansi and others (Venice, etc., 1759-), xix, col. 742.
[10] Cartulaire de l’abbaye de la Sainte-Trinité du Mont de Rouen, ed. Achille Deville, no. 37, in Collection de cartulaires de France (Paris, 1840: Documents Inédits), iii, p. 441; Chartes de Saint-Julien de Tours, ed. J.-L. Denis (Le Mans, 1912), no. 24. Both these charters are dated 1053, and the attestations of Matilda seem incontestably contemporary. The Tours charter in addition to the incarnation has “regnante Henrico rege anno xxviii.” This is unusual and might raise a doubt, but it pretty clearly refers to the year 1053. No. 26 of the same collection similarly gives 1059 as the thirty-fourth year of King Henry. Both evidently reckon the reign as beginning from 1026, when Henry was probably designated heir to the throne a year before his actual coronation in 1027. Christian Pfister, Études sur le règne de Robert le Pieux (Paris, 1885), pp. 76-77. This conclusion seems to be confirmed by a charter of 26 May in the thirtieth year of Robert the Pious (1026?) which Henry attests as king, according to Pfister, ‘by anticipation.’ Ibid., p. lxxxii, no. 78. But Frédéric Soehnée does not accept Pfister’s conclusion. Catalogue des actes d’Henri Iᵉʳ, roi de France, 1031-1060 (Paris, 1907), no. 10. The original is not extant.